H.R. 3362 – Exchange Information Disclosure Act (Rep. Terry – Energy and Commerce/Ways and Means) (One Hour of Debate). This bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to deliver weekly reports on consumer interactions with the Federal and state-based marketplaces. These weekly reports would be required to include state-by-state breakdowns of the number of people enrolled in a qualified health plan or Medicaid, the number of people whose enrollments were completed by paying their first monthly premiums, as well as their ages, ZIP codes, and number of webchat logins. Medicaid enrollee reports would be required to include both the number of people who were newly eligible to enroll due to the Affordable Care Act and the number of people who would have been eligible anyway. Reports would also be required to disclose any problem with the websites, including how the problem is being addressed, the cost of such actions and how they are being paid for, and the names of the federal officials responsible for overseeing the process.

Currently, HHS reports enrollment data on a monthly basis, which is consistent with how such data is reported for other federal programs, including Medicaid, CHIP, and others. Adding these burdensome, extra reporting requirements, as well as forcing HHS to aggregate and verify their data, collect aggregated and verified data from the states and report it on a weekly basis – especially with no additional resources – shows this bill for what it is: yet another GOP attempt to heap bureaucracy on HHS, with the long-standing goal of preventing the Affordable Care Act from succeeding.

The Rule, which was adopted last week, provides for a closed Rule and one hour of debate, with 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the Chair and Ranking Member of the Committee on Ways and Means. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

The Daily Quote

“Negotiations to extend emergency benefits for the long-term jobless deadlocked in the Senate on Tuesday. That leaves more than 1.3 million people without federal unemployment aid at least until late January, when lawmakers are likely to resume consideration of the legislation… The short-term impact of the stalemate is to deny aid to a subset of the labor force that economists now consider the most troubling hindrance to a full recovery: the long-term unemployed. The longer-term hit, if there is no resolution, is that the broader national economy will lose the stimulative boost of more than $25 billion in consumer spending that the unemployment benefits could provide over the next year. Despite suggestions over the past week that a deal was emerging, the two sides were never particularly close — certainly not on a plan that would have won enough support in the House, where conservatives have shown little appetite for the various proposals.”

- Washington Post, 1/15/2014

Email Updates

Email:

Twitter

Latest From the House Floor

On Tuesday, The House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for legislative business and recess immediately. The House will reconvene at approximately 10:45 a.m. for the purpose of receiving, in a Joint Meeting of Congress, His Excellency Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.